(JTA) — Linoy Ashram won the gold medal in the rhythmic gymnastics contest at the Tokyo Olympics Saturday, narrowly beating out her Russian competitor to become the first Israeli woman to win an Olympic gold medal. The medal was Israel’s second gold at the Tokyo games and third in any Olympic contest. Ashram’s winning score,…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Michael Herzog, a brigadier general who has a longtime relationship with an influential Washington think tank, will be the next ambassador to the United States, according to Israeli media reports. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid have settled on Herzog, the brother of President Isaac Herzog, for the role,…
VIDIN, Bulgaria (JTA) — For 40 years, the central synagogue in this port city has resembled the town’s Jewish population — barely existent and rapidly aging. The synagogue, which was built in the 19th century, is quite literally a shell of its former self. Vines creep up the side of the stone walls and the…
(JTA) — After failing to make the indoor volleyball team for the 2016 Olympics, Alix Klineman decided she would switch her sport to beach volleyball. She explained, “I looked at the beach as a new opportunity and a chance to chase my dreams without anybody having to give me approval or put me on a roster.”…
(JTA) — For Chabad-Lubavitch, major events aren’t over until they take a group photograph. The tradition, covering the international Hasidic movement, creates much more than a souvenir. It has also generated a visual record of Chabad’s growth from a small group in the 18th century in what was then the Russian empire to a global…
President Joe Biden has picked Chanan Weissman as the administration’s liaison to the American Jewish community, a position he held in the Obama administration and one of the highest profile jobs at the intersection of American Jewry and government, sources familiar with the decision confirmed. Weissman, 37, currently a staffer on the National Security Council,…
BERLIN (JTA) – As Germany prepares to put a 100-year-old man on trial for Nazi war crimes, public prosecutors in several German states have announced that they are investigating more than a dozen other suspects. Most of the cases involve concentration camp guards who may be charged as accessories to murder following the precedent-setting conviction…
(JTA) — Israeli gymnast Artem Dolgopyat is not only making headlines around the world for winning a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. Dolgopyat, 24, who immigrated from Ukraine at age 12, is engaged but not allowed to be married in Israel because he is not Jewish according to traditional Jewish law. Only his father’s…
(JTA) — The Jewish Federations of North America has canceled the in-person portion of its signature annual event, the General Assembly, citing the coronavirus. The umbrella group for local federations had planned to combine online and in-person events, but told participants this week that it was canceling the latter for the expected 500 participants. Events…
(JTA) — (New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Writer Luc Sante calls them the “ghosts of Manhattan.” Those are the souls of the poor and marginal people, now dead, whose presence can be felt like a shade in the history of now affluent neighborhoods, “where they push invisibly behind it to erect their memorials…
(JTA) — Shontel Brown, a Cuyahoga County councilwoman, came from behind in the polls to win a critical Democratic primary in a Cleveland area district with a substantial Jewish population, with considerable help from a mainstream pro-Israel political action committee. Dave Wasserman, the political editor of the Cook Political Report, on Tuesday evening called the…
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